Becoming the person for the day

At 5.00 am I woke and forsaking the pyjamas, the bed and the warmth, took myself out to the garden and the summer house.  The remarkable thing about the earlier morning meditations is that time flies and with no effort, half an hour of meditation is effortless and simple.  There isn't the tussle with the mind's suggestions of things to be done and you seem to be bathed in the same becoming that is happening in nature.  There must be a period between night and day when each sleeping thing remembers its form and function and gets ready to display again, birds to be birds, roses to be roses and people to become the person for the day.

a better authority on stillness

Owing to having nothing positive to report from my own practice other than partying is great fun and that seeing old friends is near to being blissful, I am using the words of Marsilio Ficino to convey the message about why meditation is conducive to real connection.
"If a ray, descending from God Himself to the soul on the perpendicular, lights upon a soul set aslant at an irregular angle, it bounces off sideways, and naturally does not reveal God, but some empty flash in the soul... But if it has found a soul that is inwardly level and horizontal, it springs back straight to God and takes the soul with it to the happy embrace of its own object and end, where the mind at last enjoying God, enjoys itself also, that is, finding itself for itself in the Ideal Form."
Quoted from the History of Angels by Valery Rees

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not pyjamas, not the bed, not the flat, so what is it?

It isn't any good blaming the pyjamas, they are neutral, it isn't any good blaming the bed nor the location, nor anything else!  But looking more closely could it just be that sleep is the enemy or rather that by being attached to the idea of sleep is opposed to being fully conscious?  Imagine the delicious  nature of sleep as you, the person, are absorbed into its sweet embrace! This is so blissful that if you think about it, many of the other pleasures are akin to that feeling of becoming absorbed by something else.  A really lovely wine, a delicious meal, a holiday, falling in love, a warm bath, the company of someone who likes you, all of these things lull you (and me) into a false sense of security.  So, what to do with pleasures?  Should we climb a mountain and cut out all sensory pleasures?   I'm not sure that a householder disciple should do that, a householder disciple should be able to measure out the pleasure factor, know it for what it is and live lightly with it.  So, sleep is a challenge.  It is said that if you practise a new habit for 60 days, it becomes natural.  Having failed the 4.00 am challenge today, it means I will have to restart my 60 days.  I'm not sure if I have it in me to be that sharp, but I will take it day by day and I will stop blaming the pyjamas, they are innocent.

excuses excuses

We stayed in London last night and the early start didn't happen.  Not the pyjamas this time, but shall I blame the bed or the fact that if I had got out of it when I woke I would have disturbed my husband, my hosts or shall I just say that the individual person lying in the bed with the individual mind making its puny excuses won the day.  We got up at our old normal, had tea and then meditated before taking to the road to the West.

the key might be in the pyjamas

If you clamber out to meditate early in your pyjamas, no matter how good your meditation, the pyjamas suggest to you that you should be back in your bed afterwards, they are just the natural pair to bed so obedient to their insistence, you return to the bed.  Tomorrow, it's off with the pyjamas, never mind if it takes a little longer, and see if post meditation, the thoughts turn to study not to sleep.
The other pyjama story which really impressed me was from a man who said that he practises acute attention when he folds up his pyjamas every morning.   It connects him with what he is doing and makes him aware of the miracle of the human body working.
So pyjamas, your place in the blogosphere is raised to the level of teacher.

early connection

Made the 4.00 am connection again, I walked across the soft damp grass, lit a candle, covered my knees with a rug and meditated.  Again, a most uncomplicated meditation, the only requirement to keep the back straight and not sag sleepily.
If there are angels everywhere, they certainly want recognition if they are going to help so how do we do it?  Just remember that they are there and that the whole space round you and round those you like, you don't like and those you will have nothing to do with, is their space.  It makes you realise that you don't have ALL the responsibility, there are others there to help.

up there with the birds

Going to bed I made my mind up to get up on first waking and also that it would be at 4.00 am!  Amazingly, without an alarm, I did wake then but had to grapple with the eyelids which wanted to close and the body which didn't relish moving.  It took ten minutes and I set off through the garden to the summer house, put a rug around myself and meditated.  The time went by incredibly fast and without being fanciful the atmosphere really was just much less cluttered.
Do you find that when you try to be still at times when the world is in motion, that it can be a battle, ideas bombarding the mind, noises distracting? In the early morning, the only sounds were the birds.  Even the puppy didn't move when I passed by.

However, after meditating so early, I popped back into the warm bed and slept until 6.00 am.  Tomorrow, I will use that time a bit better.  I thought of the nuns, of Sister Wendy, of the great lamas and rishis and I thought of the Brahma Kumaris, their leader aged 96, all getting up at 4.00 am and staying up in order to study and thought it was a bit wet not to get more of a grip of myself.